Young Minds
by TheBatKid
Summary: Subject S was created. He was the cure. He was the hope. But when he breaks free, and runs to wreck havoc on a world that terrifies him, who will reach him first? Will it be the X-Men? Will it be Magneto? Or will it be Wolverine? (Does not follow any storyline. Not sure where to put this.)
1. Chapter 1

Young Minds

Manufactured. Synthetic. Fake. Subject S knew these words very well. For all his life, trapped in a cryogenically frozen state whilst the scientists around him 'played', the young boy had been forced to listen to these descriptions of himself over and over. They thought he could not hear. They thought they were safe.

They were wrong.

Subject S felt no pain during his time, nor emotion nor sense, although the people often thought he should have been tested. It was as if he were nothing but a lab experiment, created accidentally in a mad rush of chemicals, and kept on ice until they understood what made him tick. Whenever his eyes flickered in the water the scientists would fly in an uproar, clearing away their livelihoods in small cardboard boxes before fleeing the facility S called home. It was like he was about to crack, about to snap – if only he was old enough to understand the power he would possess after that glass prison shattered.

But, then again, you could never tell a victim these things.

He was supposed to be the cure. Created only to be killed, once the right information was obtained. The world was oblivious to his existence, to his torment, to his pain; one would have thought a three year old child would have been protected no matter what the cost, medically or otherwise. When everyone is blind to someone's pain, who can care for it? Who can fight against it?

One day, some three years, two months and twelve days into S's life, something suddenly changed. The goo that had cradled him all through that time became unstable and, although they exhausted every other option available, his captives were forced to do something they never thought they would. Beeping grey machines that lined his 'room' were slowly silencing as the scientists switched them off, causing florescent lights overhead to spark with a seemingly unbearable energy. The child was curled in a foetal position whilst floating in a glass cylinder, located directly in the middle of a hard concrete room, even though this did not bother him much. How could it, when S had never seen anything except the insides of his eyelids?

"You're making a mistake," this deep voice was not the first he had heard; "We're never going to be able to get away with releasing him. Give me a few more days, a week at most – I swear that we'll make the cryogenic state more stable."

"You've had enough time! A whole damn month of it!" S could feel something sapping away at him now, as if the cradling warmth he had been so used to was suddenly disappearing. Coldness ripped through his frail body like a nightmarish chainsaw...but unlike babies, he did not cry at this new development. The boy was finally being born. Three years spent in the womb, and now it was his chance to taste the exotic air of the world.

Excitement (a new feeling) racked his body in great lashings when he finally collapsed. The floor underneath was made of metal and, upon impact, a thousand volts of pain jolted through him whilst the child attempted to collect his thoughts. What was this? What was it made out of? Was it edible, or did people sleep on it? Often during his imprisonment, S had been able to catch snippets of the scientist's muffled conversations, which often outlined certain aspects of their own lives and activities. To finally have a chance at that, for that moment brought to him new hope, was the greatest gift the three year old had ever received. And that included the slightly less excruciating shocks of electricity he was subjected to during sleep.

"When will he open his eyes?"

"I don't know and I don't care. Get him loaded into the van, then ask all the stupid questions Lloyd."

S could feel his eyelids flickering slightly. One ray of light shed into his usually dark world, illuminating the container he was kept in for so long, although the glaring glow was enough to almost blind him first. Like a newborn, he did not care to focus on any one object, but instead the boy allowed his eyes to wander over this new land that he had lived in for three years. Blindness was lifted – finally, S could see.

"Look! Look! He's got his eyes open! Wow...they're more sparkly than I expected!" This greyish blob jiggled outside of the glass for a moment, bouncing as if independent from the rest of its limbs, until finally some natural structures began to form in his brand new vision. Rounded features started to slowly mould into extremities as the more refined details were pencilled onto this blob's face – it turned out he was truly a tanned man, aged forty something, with giant bags under his eyes and a few welts puckering all over his face. Not an attractive person to see, especially not for the first time in his life.

He was too excited to care, though.

"What the Hell are you - Oh, you're right. His eyes are sparkly. And purple too! Maybe it's just an after effect of what we've been injecting into him," this voice, effeminate and soft, actually belonged to a baby-faced young man who probably had an accident with a helium tank. His face was softer on the child's eyes, although his intentions were the harsher of the two, since he looked down with disgusted brown irises as S tapped against the hard surface of his prison.

"He's quite sweet, isn't he?" The ugly man cooed whilst dragging his finger against the glass, "Not dangerous at all. We don't need those extra guards, do we? Look – he's so cute!" It seemed age had melted the scientist's IQ slightly because, even though S quite happily played the sweet child, the humming power that streamed from his bones was enough to indicate his danger. He had been created for energy and a cure; there was nothing about this child that was sweet, and nothing about him that was natural.

The next few hours are a blur to him. Vaguely, memories of pain and torture flood into his mind; however, S found that these emotions had been ever present through his life. The frailness of his body denied him the right to be fretted over, especially not by these madmen of science, although the child could clearly remember blood. The blood of the scientists. The blood of a new beginning.

What powers did he contain? They never found out. What emotions could he feel? Anger was one of them. Were they able to create a cure? They didn't survive long enough to even start. By the time the dead were discovered, after a few days of decomposing had taken place, S was already far away from that accursed place. The only things that remained of him were the data tables, a broken test tube filled with his strange cell structure...and a trace of a thought, inside a paralyzed man's head.

Charles Xavier could feel whispers of S's existence, beckoning him to a land that was far from his own. These calls were so strong that telepath thought his mind would crack, and all his intelligence would spill onto the floor as this little boy continued to run. Why did he run? What was he scared of? Surely someone like him, who could not remember what day he was born, would not fear anything?

Manufactured. Synthetic. Fake.


	2. First Steps

S did not know where he was. A large lake laid in front of him, complete with a small fringe of bushes and a menagerie of wild animals, though his young mind was in too much turmoil to admire the beauty. He could not remember coming to this place, nor could he remember where he had been or what he had done. Even as strange pink birds played in the lake in front of him, standing on one single leg like the most elegant of ballerinas, the young child could feel nothing but confusion with dashes of fear. Where was he? Why was he there? Why was there red paint on his hands?

He looked down to see the strange, dried substance. It had crusted into the crevices of his soft palms and lined it as if it were some weird ink – for a moment the creation simply traced it with one of his other fingers, until questions started to rise in his slightly untrained mind. The hot sun beat down on him mercilessly from where he sat, perched somewhere underneath a large over-hanging rock which had a thin curtain of vines decorating it. He pulled them closed slightly like some makeshift home; only a few days had passed since his release, and already he had been abandoned in a world he could never understand. S was only young. He may not have been born in the usual way, but he was still a little boy who deserved love and care. He did not deserve this...

"_Little one," _a voice started speaking. It was whispery, weak; if S had not been listening, than he doubted he would have heard it, "_Don't be alarmed. I'm a friend. My name is Charles Xavier, and I come from America. I can't reach you very well, you're extremely far away from us, but I can't tell where. Can you tell me, so I can send someone to collect you? You'll be safe with us."_

The child peeked past his curtain, but he already knew no one was around him. The voice, without a face and without a physical presence, was simply in his head right now, which caused a certain chill to run up his spine when he heard it mutter again. What was it trying to do? Why was it trying to contact him? There was so much he did not understand here – why should he trust something that did not even have a face?

"_I don't know," _S replied in his mind, hoping that the voice would be satisfied with his answer, if it could even hear. By the scarcely audible sounds he had heard it must have been male, although the child had never met anyone aside from the scientists. Come to think of it, why were they not with him now? When they had spoken about him during his captivity, S thought that they were always going to be there to take care of him. Why was he alone...?

"_Can you describe the place? How old are you? If you can tell me something about the area you're in, I can send one of my team members to collect you. You're different, aren't you?"_

"_Different? I...I don't know..."_

"_I know that you're confused right now. Do you have a mother? Do you have a father? Don't be frightened."_

"_Mother? Father? What's that? Please, voice – leave me alone," _young S was now starting to become afraid. During his cryogenic state he remembered stories that the scientists passed, about men who asked too many questions and received something called a, 'bullet' between their eyeballs. The boy was old enough to understand the concepts of death, even more so to have accepted he had a limited time on this world, although he did not want to condemn another to such an abrupt ending. This voice was dabbling in dark waters.

"_What do you mean...?" _Suddenly, the spectral echo was silenced. S found himself all alone again. The peaceful cries from the animals outside called over his confusion, diverting his attention away from it, until the young child found himself admiring the scenery too much to care. There was too much beauty here, too much natural splendour, for him to fret about the little details about his existence.

Finally, S wanted to explore. It was difficult at first as he clambered onto his shaky legs and he found himself taking a few practise steps, just to be sure that he would not collapse under his own body weight. The sand outside was hot to his bare feet; it was a wonderful feeling, as the pain sunk down on to the tender soles of his young extremities. Some of the animals fled right at the sight of him but otherwise they remained still, content to watch him leisurely as they chewed on little stalks of food and enjoyed the peace of their natural habitat. He smiled at them, before diving for the water and coating his face in it to cool off.

"What've we got here then?" This language was unknown to him – since he was born he had learnt to eavesdrop in English, not in this foreign mess of words. Turning, S caught a full gun-butt to the face, which caused him to slam down to the ground like a sack of potatoes whilst a harsh laugh sounded. Rage started to grow inside his head; why had he just been struck?!

"Looks like a little lost kid, probably abandoned by his rich-arse parents. Think we can sell him on?"

"Little thing like him? Probably a lot, so long as we can market him properly. There'll be a lot of bidding on him so that won't be a problem. Come on, get him loaded into the truck and we'll set off for town."

S could feel something growing inside of him. Rage had subsided, leaving him with this emotion that was hard to contain yet so difficult to let lose, all the while he was forced to listen to these men babble in their gibberish. These were the people his scientists use to talk about, and now they were not here to look after him. How could he fight them off himself? How could he become a fighter when, not long ago, he had been nothing but a scared child taking his first look at the world?

Everything suddenly went blank.


	3. Friendly Faces

Charles sat back in his chair. This child he had contacted, who had been so quick to bat him away, possessed a strength that he thought impossible for such a young specimen. Normally it would take a relatively close range to pick up on such brainwaves even when using his machine, though this energy was almost detectable without. Whispers sounded in his head, mutterings of a power that desired blood, which caused shivers to travel through his un-paralyzed body.

S wasn't sure about his location. After waking up on a sun-baked rock and finding himself covered in a dried red substance, there was much speculation for him about his next home. The scientists were no longer at his side – without his frozen bed, everything seemed to be new and terrifying to the little child. Where was he? Why was he coated in this thing? It seemed like a strange sort of paint, although he had no clue of that's existence either. There must have been someone who would help him...

It took a few moments to scan the area. Entirely different now, he could have guessed he was no longer in the great desert that he originally woke up in, as this place had massive buildings in the surrounding area and a few homely cafes dotted about on street corners. There were even a few children, some smaller than him, who were admiring his sleeping body from afar whilst they played with shining red orbs. One young girl flashed a smile at him before skipping up to his resting place.

"Hey sleepy head!" From a guess, S estimated she was around seven or eight, "You've been on that rock for an hour! We've been watching you, in case you were lost or something, so you wouldn't be scared when you woke up. Come on – mommy is making us some lunch and she told us to bring you in when you were finally awake. I'm Trina, by the way."

Her voice was as sweet as honey and her hair was a glossy brown, though this didn't make S feel any safer. Confusion plagued his mind as he gazed down at her, marvelling at the slightly tanned structures of her soft face and trying to make sense of this whole situation. Was he home yet? Was this near his home? He couldn't remember anything – the child could only catch snippets of something prodding him, and then a feeling of weightlessness before he blacked out.

"What's up little guy? Don't be frightened! Mom is really nice! She says it's the Australian way to be nice; we don't believe her because sometimes Daddy's really mean, but we can't say that! Follow me!" Without making sure he was following, Trina skipped towards a blue-painted cafe whilst the children scattered behind her. The building was tipped by white strokes which resembled clouds, and someone had been careful to equip the exterior with small little doves and a few purple-headed flowers. S hadn't seen something so adorable – for a moment, he felt as though that was where he wanted to be; however sense soon returned to him and the mood of distrust descended over his personality.

How could he be sure this place was up to code? How could he, the small little experiment, find something good about this building when he belonged back home? A small whisper went off in his head whilst he patted towards the cafe, one that muttered an instruction of remaining in place before dissipating in his mind. That voice again! If Mr. Xavier was truly concerned about his well-being, he would have stopped rattling about in his thoughts and would actually do something to help.

"_Stay in place..." _it muttered, "_We'll find you...stay there..."_

The scientists had often said the same thing. They threatened people on their machines, telling them that if they ran there would be no place to hide, although no one wanted to leave this goldmine of discovery. What researcher, in their right mind, would pass up the opportunity to work on a top-secret government experiment? Especially one that had the potential to rid the world of mutants, and surely make themselves safer in the process. It was foolish to ever run...it was foolish to think of S as a child, rather than just a big ball of manufactured genes.

"Oh good, you're alive!" A warm voice trilled in the restaurant, which was filled by warm smells and hushed chatter of their customers, "For a moment I thought you might have been really hurt! We've got some clean clothes for you to put on later but don't worry about that now; a growing boy needs to eat!"

This lady was a rounded shape, complete with wobbling cheeks and a jelly-like smile, but S did not care about that. Her voice was comforting, her words filled with affection for a child she did not know, whilst her own daughter was setting a small table in front of the blue-coated till. Big china plates were prepared and the cups were made of plastic; however this did not matter, as it seemed they had trapped fake fish within the cup's structure, and they happily bobbed about whenever S lifted the glass. What manner of sorcery was this? Never before had he seen something so strange before, and he had been wrapped up in a government facility!

"T-thank," he mumbled whilst a big helping of mash potato was put on his plate, "T-thank you. My name...S. I have home. Somewhere." His speech, though unrefined, told the lady that this child was lost in some way. She could never imagine his true origin, nor could she even begin to fathom the power that lay dormant in his mind – this boy was just that. A boy.

"S? That's very unusual!" She cooed as he tentatively ate, "This is Trina, and my name is Susan. Welcome to my little cafe S! When you're done eating we're going to have to take you somewhere to get you checked out, then we'll have to go to the police and report you as a missing child."

The boy dropped his glass. 'Police' was a familiar word to him, one that the scientists dreaded during his frozen state, but he could never begin to tell these kind people that. For some reason he felt his true identity would scare them, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

But he couldn't help feeling those whispers in his head.


	4. Welcome Intruder

S knew this peace couldn't last. Oh, he was mournful of the fact, and far too young to be so cynical, but there was no denying that the tranquillity he found was only temporary. The child was given kind words by this lady – the large angel named Susan – and her husband, a terrifying beast of a man with more hair on his chest than S had on his head. His thick moustache trembled in fear whenever he spoke and his daughter, who had been so friendly towards the boy before, started to act as though she were too frightened to even speak.

But despite this, he seemed to have a good nature about him. The spare bedroom in his cafe was appointed as the boy's temporary accommodation and he worked hard to make it comfortable, although his decoration skills were not up to code. It were as if the man was entirely unaware of his own colour-blindness; however, that was not unexpected in a specimen who showed a higher noise to fact ratio.

"You'll be staying here," his voice was thick like honey as he gestured towards the generously proportioned space, which was coated by a disgusting lime green plague and complimented by an equally upsetting yellow bed. Its duvet seemed freckled with brown spots that had not come off in the wash but they thought it added character, and S only found that the cherry red curtains were something he particularly liked about this place. He adored their quivering in the light breeze outside, pouring through an open brown-painted window pane.

"T-thank you," he manufactured some appreciation from the depths of his young mind, "S like it here. Pretty curtains. Must work for long time." The giant teddy bear brute assumed in his own mind - fraught with prejudice against people he did not identify with, yet somehow sympathetic to their blight – that this youngster must have been foreign, and whatever parents he belonged to had abandoned him overnight. It caused a stir in his heart to think of somebody, anybody, who could leave their own creation for dead. An image of his daughter danced in his mind; what would become of her if he ever did that? What would his innocent, precious Trina do when faced with such conditions, in which this boy had come close to death?

"Listen here, son," by his accent, S had deduced that he was not Australian. He had lived here for a great many years but the faint strains on his voice indicated change, a significant one. In fact the child thought that he was most likely English.

Now...where did English people come from? And how in the world did he know their nationality?

"Hm?"

"I know there must be some sort of confusion in where you come from since the police couldn't even find you on their records, but there's gonna be an investigation about it. Don't worry about it kid; you'll be back with whoever you belong with soon, and 'til then you're welcome here."

Despite his kind words, and the slightly weathered features he possessed being creased into a smile, S could feel no comfort in his presence. He was far too large, with far too much strength locked into his well-built frame, which would make the hardiest of men rethink punching him.

"T-thank you."

"Oh, just so y'know," the father called as he went to descend the stairs, leaving the child to look at his depressing new room in mocked excitement, "We don't tolerate mutant related stuff in this house. Susan might like it but that's just 'cause she doesn't know what they're like, so be careful about who you talk to, kid. I don't want to have to scold you over being a mutant-lover."

With that, the man disappeared. His hefty footsteps echoed on the stairs and slowly lessened in noise, right up until they had almost completely depleted, at which point he had reached the sofa and sat himself down for the day. S knew that his previous sentence spelt trouble – the child had known from a very early age that he was different, in more ways than his unconventional birth, and the word 'mutant' seemed to fish memories out from the pool of his mind.

He suddenly recalled the scientists. Their conversations had often contained that word, causing stirs in their mutterings and sometimes even an increased bout of work, but he never fully understood why this was. Many things presented themselves in his mind when he thought about it; however the most notable emotion within it had to be comfort, so warm in his soul that he believed this word to be magical.

Little did the father know that his visitor was what he hated most. This man, involved in a deep discussion with his plump wife about the boy's existence, had no idea that he was harbouring a mutant, one of which could change the way that the world looked at them. The only thing that would ever give anyone this idea would be the way S's eyes glittered in the sunlight, and the way the boy seemed to know what he was doing before he did it.

"Right little rascal, in' he?" the man muttered whilst indulging himself with a chocolate rabbit, "He'll be a good kid, but we've gotta make a plan for him, don't ya think?"

Susan, who was happily going about her duties as a wife, responded in a cheery tone, "There's not going to be a plan, Bruce! He'll be fine! Sure, we might struggle a bit with an extra mouth to feed, but the police seem to want to help us out with his citizenship! How about that? We've been trying so long to have another baby, and now one's just fallen right into our lap! A brother for Trina!"

Her smile could have been mistaken for deranged, although Bruce knew his wife was simply excited for a new arrival to the household. After so many failed attempts at conceiving they were finally going to have a new baby, even though this one was slightly more aged than they would have liked.

But S knew this would not be the place he was raised.


End file.
